The Dangerous Wizard of Oz

Steven Mitchell Wright of The Danger Ensemble says the Wizard of Oz narrative is embedded in the collective unconscious, thanks to Judy Garland and MGM. But Wright’s reinterpretation for a younger audience comes at you in a 4G-fast visual assault. “They’re also highly visually literate,” he says. “They can read and perceive story and intention through image much faster than a generation 20 years ago could. The nature of theatrical work these days is that in my opinion it is a visual art as much as it is a written and oral and auditory work.”

This Wizard is described as “a fantastical world of couture-clad witches and bondage-bound munchkins, in a land where high-fashion visual art show meets Australiana in an explosion of glitter, glory, and goddamn rainbows”. There’s a camp sensibility at work here, but also an emotional depth, hinted at when Wright veers from a discussion of camp to older women and their dreams of liberation.

“The campness comes from an older generational version of glamour and [Judy G’s] vision and idea of a Hollywood star,” he says. “She’s your grandmother, she’s the woman you don’t want to see lonely, you don’t want to see trying to escape, but she is.”